James P. Bond: Prisons must end cruel practice of solitary confinement

August 10, 2013

The closure of psychiatric hospitals, without providing sufficient aftercare, contributed to the explosion of our prison population.

In Pennsylvania alone, inmates increased from 8,000 to 51,000 in 30 years. Recent "smart-on-crime" legislation of 2012 in Pennsylvania has begun to reverse this by placing nonviolent drug and alcohol offenders in community correction centers and by not returning technical parole violators back to prison.

Uncorrected, however, is the overuse of solitary confinement. In Pennsylvania, about 2,400 inmates exist in isolation, many with poorly treated or untreated mental and intellectual disabilities.

In March, the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit in federal court against the state Corrections Department.

On May 31, 2013, the U.S. Justice Department issued a report regarding its investigation of one of the 27 state prisons, State Correction Institute Cresson. SCI Cresson, which the state has closed, was found to have violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by treating mentally ill and intellectually disabled prisoners with cruel and unusual punishment via solitary confinement. The investigation has been expanded to include the other 26 state prisons.

Solitary confinement began more than 200 years ago so that the offender could reflect upon his crime and become reformed. Despite its abject failure, solitary confinement has persisted. Prisoners are confined in a small cell where the only window is a slot for food. They are allowed out of the cell one hour a day. This treatment is called being placed in the "hole," which is more sophisticatedly called the restricted housing unit.

In solitary confinement, a single light bulb remains lit 24 hours a day, thus causing sleeplessness. More importantly, it alters the body's normal circadian rhythm. According to "The Science of Chronobiology," this involves complex mechanisms involving light and dark receptors of the eye retina, connecting with the pituitary and pineal glands of the brain, which control cortisol, melatonin and other hormones. In turn, those molecules affect body temperatures, blood pressure and many other physiological and behavioral responses.

With little or no access to rehabilitation, inmates' confinement may last for weeks to years. Needless to say, paranoid feelings, hallucinations, self-destruction and suicide may occur.

Scientific American published an article in its August edition about solitary confinements on a national level. About 80,000 people are held in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons. New research suggests that solitary confinement creates more violence, both inside and outside prison walls. In a California prison, 500 inmates have been in isolation for more than a decade. A psychology professor at University of California, Santa Cruz, has documented several people who, without any pre-existing mental illness, developed paranoid psychosis after prolonged solitary confinement.

On a positive note, the state of Mississippi reduced the number of prisoners in its solitary confinement unit at the Parchman facility (from 1,300 in 2007 to about 300 today) and developed new units for inmates with mental illnesses. The result was a reduction in violent attacks from 45 incidents in March 2006 to only five in January 2008. Mississippi saved $5 million in 2008 alone. In Pennsylvania, the cost of keeping an inmate in solitary confinement far exceeds the cost of regular cell confinement.

In 1890 the U.S. justice system understood that long stretches of solitary served no good purpose. A century later that wisdom has been lost. Pennsylvania and California may be the slowest states to reform their incarceration systems.

Dr. James P. Bond of Tobyhanna Township is a retired oncologist who volunteers with the Pennsylvania Prison Society.